The present invention concerns an educational game, in particular for children.
At a time when audio-visual means are developing at a pace such that even children cannot escape the power of such means and often become the privileged target thereof, it is necessary to bring children out of this incident-filled setting and teach them to overcome the passiveness in which modern-day society in inexorably immersing them.
The education of children has therefore gradually been converted into a question of schooling them in reflection and intelligence.
For the youngest of children, games are still excellent means of education. However, it is no longer reasonable to try to retain the attention of young children, without making use of the latest fashion which gives them the impression of being up-to-date in their manner of life.
This analysis is the basis of the novel game proposed by the present invention, which seeks to offer, essentially to children, modern means capable of developing their faculties of associating ideas or establishing relationships.
For this purpose, the present invention concerns an educational game characterised in that it comprises a support arrangement, a first carrier member which is mounted on the support arrangement and on which is disposed a first series of pieces of information, at least one second carrier member on which there is disposed a second series of pieces of information which can be respectively associated with those of the first information series, and a signalling means comprising at least one series of display elements for displaying another piece of information, which are disposed on said first carrier memeber of the support arrangement. One of said display elements corresponds to each piece of information of said first information series, means are provided for actuating the signalling means and for causing said other piece of information to appear first successively at said display elements and then, after a given period, at only one of said display elements, and a series of means are provided which are associated respectively with the pieces of information of said first information series and which are so arranged that the association of the piece of information of said first information series, corresponding to the display element at which, after said given period, said other piece of information appears, with the corresponding piece of information of said second information series, causes said other piece of information to disappear.
The signalling means may also comprise a sound source disposed in the support arrangement, being intended to be actuated at the end of the given period after which said other information appears at only one of said display elements, and, instead of the association in question causing said other information to disappear, it modulates the emission of the sound source.
In an embodiment of the game of the invention, the means for actuating the signalling means are so arranged as to cause said other information to appear at the display elements in a random fashion.
In this case, the essential interest of the game is selecting, from the information of the second information series, that piece of information which is to be associated with the piece of information of the first information series corresponding to the display element at which said other piece of information appears, in order to cause said other piece of information to disappear, without the player of the game having been able beforehand to have the slightest idea about the end result of the display sequence.
If a number of players are playing the game, and if each of them has the same second information series, the winner is that player who, in each display sequence, makes the necessary association first. The game therefore involves on the one hand a capacity for associating ideas and on the other hand, speed of thought.
For the attention of children, the information in question may be images illustrating events, for example a series of accidents with which the players are required to associate complementary images illustrating suitable rescue means, for example a shipwreck and a lifeboat, or a fire in a building and a fire tender. The game may also involve associating colors, numbers, shapes, volumes, etc.
The display elements may advantageously be light sources such as lamps which an electrical signalling means causes to flicker in turn but in a random order, each display sequence concluding with a single lamp being continuously lit.
Thus, the game of the present invention also involves the idea of a lottery, with the group of flickering lamps symbolizing the rotating wheel. However, if, in a lottery, the position in which the wheel is going to stop remains uncertain for a long period of time, that uncertainty is greatly reduced and even becomes zero, with the speed of the wheel. It is certain that developing the capacity for associating ideas, in a child, would still occur with a conventional lottery, but, when a number of players are playing the game, the game would lose a major part of its interest, which is to arrive at the association of information before the other players. In order to conclude this comparison, it may be claimed that, in this embodiment, the invention provides a lottery wherein the rotating wheel would be driven in rotation in both directions and in a random manner, before being abruptly stopped.
It should be noted that, even in the event that the means for actuating the display sequence do not cause the lamps to flicker in a random fashion, it is possible that the game is still comparable, obviously only in part, to a lottery. In fact, when a display sequence has been triggered off and then stopped at a given lamp, by a player having arrived at the association of respective pieces of information, the means for actuating the display sequence can be so arranged that a player, for example the winner, can trigger off a fresh display sequence, starting from the lamp which would have flickered at the moment that the fresh sequence was triggered off, if the display sequences had succeeded each other and had been renewed without interruption, or if only the fresh sequence had been triggered off when the previous sequence was stopped. It will be seen then that the time taken by the winner of a given sequence, to make the necessary association and to trigger off the following sequence, varies from one sequence to another, or from one player to another, with the result that the players can never know which lamp will be the starting point of a sequence. By having a relatively high frequency for flickering of the lamps, the players will not be able to follow the flashing or flickering of the lamps, and they will not even be able to visually determine the lamp at which the sequences start, and the lamp at which each of the sequences will stop will therefore remain undetermined. In the opposite case, with the number of lamps being limited by virtue of construction restraints, knowledge of the lamp which forms the starting point of the sequence would obviously make it possible to decide which lamp would form the end of the sequence. It will be appreciated therefore that, in that case also, the flickering of the lamps appears to be random or virtually random.
In a preferred embodiment of the game of the invention, the means which are associated with said first information series and which are arranged so as to cause said other piece of information to disappear or so as to modulate the emission of the sound source, comprise an insulating card which is disposed within the support arrangement, and a series of pairs of conducting pellets printed on the card, the pairs of pellets being connected in parallel and being respectively associated with the pieces of information of the first information series and being arranged so that two pellets of the same pair are short-circuited upon association of the corresponding piece of information of said first series with the corresponding piece of information of the second series.
In this case, there may be provided a series of pairs of conducting studs which are respectively associated with the conducting pellets, in contact therewith, by way of one of their ends, and which project, by way of their other ends, out of the carrier member on which the first information series is disposed, and a series of cards which respectively carry the information of the second information series, each card comprising a metallized layer covered with an insulating coating, except for two given regions, by way of which it is intended to co-operate with one of the pairs of studs, by way of said other end, in order to short-circuit said studs and therefore the associated pellets.
Equally however, it may be provided that the pieces of information of said second information series are respectively carried by carrier members of different given shapes. The carrier member on which the information of the first information series is disposed may include recesses shaped to receive respectively the carrier members carrying the second pieces of information. Provided in the support arrangement is a series of conductor means which are respectively associated with the first pieces of information and which are arranged so that, against the action of resilient return means and when one of said carrier members carrying a second piece of information is engaged into the corresponding opening of the carrier member carrying the first pieces of information, the pellets of the pair associated with the corresponding first piece of information are shortcircuited.